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For
Martins, the high street is only one aspect of modern banking. Trustee, Executor, investment and Foreign
Services are just as important in creating new markets and income. Our Bank never rests on its laurels, and is
always looking for new ways to bring its services to as many people as
possible. On this page, we have
brought together an A to Z of our “specialist” branches and services – here
there are more than eighty examples of how Martins brings banking to the
workplace, housing estates, a hospital, industrial sites – a surprising mix
of sites and ideas that are testament to Martins’ desire to be first with
innovation. You can visit the
individual pages for many of these “specialist” branches by clicking on the
appropriate link or leaflet below… |
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A is for Abattoir… |
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As
we shall see later in this feature about Martins specialist branches, we do
turn up in the most unlikely places, but perhaps they are only unlikely on
the face of it. Our ability to sniff
out money doesn’t usually let us down, and any number of meat inspectors and
abattoir employees, not to mention those who trade with the abattoir and
those other businesses on the site are all likely to have a need to obtain or
get rid of amounts of cash. These
are the days before instant payments, and even
cheques are not widely trusted by
the ordinary working man or woman.
Therefore, with cash in charge to such an extent, a bank is a very
useful asset to a workplace such as this. Stanley
is our one and only abattoir branch, and as such has become something of a
curiosity. We are especially pleased
that Martins actually had someone take a photo of it for posterity! |
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C is for Cattle Market (and Auction Mart, too)… |
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Cattle
Markets and Auction Marts throughout the land have all benefitted from their
own branch of Martins Bank. There have been twenty five of them at various
times in the Bank’s history, and some have survived into the twenty-first
century. The blueprint for this
tradition of banking must surely be YORK CATTLE MARKET whose story is told in a long but fascinating article
from Martins Bank Magazine, and this can be found by clicking the appropriate
leaflet below. We have images for all
but five of the twenty five branches, indicated here by the leaflets showing
the young bull – this is taken from the cover of the highly successful
Martins guide “Finance for Farmers and Growers”. Some of our cattle market branches are
little more than sheds, but you can be sure that our staff there will always
go to extremes to be helpful! |
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C is also for Community… |
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Getting out and about…
Martins’
involvement in the community is pioneering and also a little curious. Having used our mobile branches at
agricultural shows and other events since 1948, it took nearly a decade for
them to realise how useful these would be to encourage people on
housing estates to use a bank. This is
an idea that has most recently been resurrected by some of the banks who were
bitterly chastised for closing too many rural branches and now hope to regain
custom by turning up on the village green once a week. Martins Mobile Branches might look really
old fashioned, but they fulfil a purpose, and raise the profile of Martins
Bank all over the UK, turning up at some 80 or more agricultural shows and
other events every year for twenty years… |
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Getting “closer to the working classes”… On
the Ernesettle Housing Estate, Plymouth, a “social experiment” is under way,
when Martins takes - and these are its
own words - “the opportunity to get
closer to the working classes” by opening a branch there. Ordinary wage earners are encouraged to
swap cash for a bank account, and learn how to budget using cheques
and bank giro credit slips.
With the full backing Plymouth Council, Martins is given a small shop
front at a cheap rent, and spends four years trying to attract “community
custom”. The branch closes in 1962, and we have no record of its perceived
successes or failures! The Bank at Lindisfarne…
Fill
your car boot with cash, drive across
Lindisfarne causeway (at low
tide of course) and call at the homes of the Holy Islanders to provide a
banking service. No, not ancient
legend or fairy tale – but FACT! Our
intrepid Berwick Upon Tweed Manager really does go to extremes to be helpful
in the days when car theft and being
coshed over the head are
relatively rarer crimes that they are today.
Truly an example of community banking! Being Hospitalised…
A
bank in a hospital might at first seem like a strange idea, but again, we
opened one when cash was still the currency of choice for hospital staff,
patients and visitors alike. At
Liverpool’s Broadgreen Hospital, our branch served up the money to spend
at the WRVS tea room, or to use in the public phone, cigarette and chewing
gum machines. This is actually one of
Martins’ more successful “specialist” branches, operating from 1963 until the
year 2000. We are aware of least one
other Barclays hospital branch, at King’s Lynn, but it was closed down
in the mid 1980s. It is sad to think
that branches like these, once staffed with friendly and sympathetic faces
are now gone altogether or replaced by cash machines… Anything to declare?
No
images or information here, but a branch is opened by the Bank of Liverpool
in the 1890s at Liverpool Custom House.
This office is listed as 21 Park Lane, and disappears from the radar
on the 28 March 1927 whilst still a branch of the Bank of Liverpool and
Martins. |
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D is for Drive-In Bank… |
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Picture
the scene – you are proudly the only national bank to break with tradition
and have your Head Office OUTSIDE London.
This is a tremendous source of pride for your organisation
and the City of Liverpool, and you set about ensuring that your bank does everything
FIRST. A drive-in branch is planned
for Leicester, and all is going smoothly, until the National Provincial Bank
gets there first, by opening its own drive in branch, in LIVERPOOL! One can only imagine the rage, temper
tantrums and throwing of toys out of prams that went on that day in the
boardroom of our magnificent Head Office.
Still, we shouldn’t dwell for too long on our own misfortune, and this
single act by one of our rivals leads directly to us becoming the first UK
bank to use computers to process our everyday work. As for drive-in branches, we opened TWO of
them, so there! |
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E is for Exchange… |
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No
images have yet appeared, but we are still on the look out for information
and photos of our various “Exchange” branches. The oldest of these is opened
by the Bank of Liverpool sometime around the 1880s. Berwick upon tweed Corn Exchange Branch is
one of the branches of the North Eastern Banking company that we inherit in 1914, and the
Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank provides us with branches at Manchester Exchange,
and Manchester Corn Exchange, when it merges with the Bank of Liverpool and
Martins in 1928. |
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F is for Forces… |
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I is for Industry … |
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Industry
means lots and lots of workers with wages, and one of the earliest schemes to
have those workers access their money over the counter is the I C I wages
through the bank Scheme. Unusually for
1959 our branch at the I C I Wilton Works in
Middlesbrough (above, left)has
a bandit screen, even though it is reserved for the exclusive use of I C I
employees! The somewhat staged image
on the right shows the Chairman of Wilton Works Council at our Redcar
Branch, receiving his first “wages through the bank”, and proving the
convenience of being able to access money at a number of outlets. One
year earlier, a similar banking arrangement is made for those working on the
vast industrial site at Aylesford Paper Mills near
Maidstone. They too have their own exclusive sub
branch, with access to wages when they want them. The Aylesford site went on
to house television studios. In 1965
we repeat the exercise at the futuristic NORGAS site at Killingworth,
Newcastle upon Tyne. Meanwhile,
at Kew Bridge in deepest Middlesex, (before it moves to Surrey), Martins
opens a branch in the British Wool Marketing Board building. It seems there is no stopping our
insatiable appetite for the credit balances of the humble British worker, but
will it be enough to stave off suitors in the future? Well, no – we know that – but it’s a damn
good try all the same. Kew Bridge is
the last of our experiments with the working classes, but there will always
be other groups to target, as we shall later in this guide to our specialist
branches… |
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S is for School… |
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…that’s
SEDBERGH school in Yorkshire, to be precise, not just any old
school, but one of this country’s finest.
It is not until 1953 that a branch is built in the town centre of Sedbergh.
Our association with the town actually begins with the establishment of our
branch in Evans House at Sedbergh School. How spiffing to be able to cash one’s postal order on school premises, before raiding the tuck shop! Gaudeamus igitur, Iuvenes dum sumus. Post iucundam iuventutem. Post molestam senectutem. Nos habebit humus. (apparently). |
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and for SHOWS, exhibitions and Trade Stands… |
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We
do love a good show, or exhibition.
Our mobile branches already attend just about every agricultural show
there ever was, but if you’re a travelling salesman, boy scout, or visitor to
any number of ideal home exhibitions, we’ll be there too, with our range of
imaginatively designed trade stands.
Our love affair with shows begins with a six month stint at the North East
Coast Exhibition of 1929. The
following list is in date order, and comprises mostly those shows exhibitions
and trade stands for which we have images on our TRADE STANDS
page. |
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T is for Trading Estates… |
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Trading
estates are seen by Martins as a potential source of income Taking the bank
to the business makes good sense in the days before computerised and internet
banking and we try our luck at three different estates in England and Wales. The first one opens at Team Valley Estate, Gateshead in
1937 in premises that seem way too large for a sub branch, and ten years
later we add Wrexham Trading Estate.
A branch at Gloucester
Hucclecote follows in 1965. We have no pictures of Wrexham,
which closes in 1957. |
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U
is for University… |
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The
ultimate cash cow for banks is the chance to have a branch on the campus of one
of our universities – unbelievably large sums are paid to lease space on
campus, and have the chance to attract the bank charge payers of tomorrow.
Things have changed in the twenty-first century, and now that most students
have to borrow their way through education, the attraction to banks of local
authority grant payments is all but gone.
Martins has branches at ten universities, and you can visit them by
clicking on the these leaflets. |
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© gut informiert 2007 to date |
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